Books are my future...hmmmm.

Book T.V. seems to have a panel about the future of books just about every weekend, and you can tell they're all worried. No one knows where it's going, everyone fears the worst. One of the panelists yesterday was asked pointblank, and he spun off an answer that he more or less implied that he was under instructions to give: The future of paper is secure. We're not worried.

What was funny was, he said it in such a rote way that you could tell he didn't believe it.

Meanwhile, on the other C-Span channel, they had another book expert talking about this Fall's books, and their projected print-runs, and she questioned the fears of imminent doom and talked about how many books were be published by big name authors.

Over on Rocketbomber, he talks about a 25 billion dollar book industry where only a small percentage is going to digital, so far.

The book, The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson, keeps coming to mind. (Written in 1995.) A little girl is given a book by her parents, and every time she reads it, the content has changed to suit her age and circumstances.

In other words, an electronic book may only be the beginning of the innovations.

And here I am sailing full sail into the winds of publishing, damn the torpedoes.

I think I'm uniquely positioned to weather the coming conflict, at least in the short run.

Meanwhile, I'm mulling over buying more bookshelves and more books. So far, I'm been a bit haphazard in the way I've purchased my stock. It's been easy to pick the low hanging fruit; the best classics and cult books and favorites.

I think I can continue to pick the best of the best-- but I need to find a more systematic way to discover what those are. And whatever system I use, needs to be easy and sustainable.

I'm thinking I need maybe 4 or 5 sites that have worthwhile lists -- which I figure are out there.
It's just finding them in the sheer quantity of sites devoted to books. The 'expert' I talked about above has a site called Shelf Awareness, and when I went to it, I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it before.

So I need to start doing some serious research on which books to buy going into the next few years. More of what I'm doing, but also with a bit more effort to fill in around the edges.